I just want to say this:
You can burn one
You can burn all
You can burn each and every single one
that has ever existed.
Wars will be waged
Countries burn for it
Copies will be bestsellers
Just for the sake of burning.
Burn it and it will be rewritten
And it will grow almost with no apparent effort
like tentacles of a creature
in your nightmare.
And even if you burn all the papers, parchments, fabrics
Destroy all connections to it
Eradicate all the symbols of its existence
It'll still be futile.
It is immortal
on the tongues
in the actions
in the minds
in the memory
of its people.
Sri Rahayu Mohd Yusop
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Eid Mubarak, Kak Sri.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree. The physical burning is more of a gimmick. Muslims should caution on hidden agenda such as uttered by Gladstone, a former British PM during a parliamentary sitting. He said that in order to defeat the Muslims, they must be detached from the teachings of the Quran.
In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, they burn books in a very disturbing near dystopian future. The author argued that the very act of book burning is just an authoritative, symbolic gesture because nobody is reading books anymore.
But in this era, where form triumphs over substance of course such provocations are taken at face value.
Thanks for writing this entry. It's a beautiful reminder.
Salam Rebecca Ilham,
ReplyDeleteEid Mubarak to you too,dear. Thank you for responding constructively to this little poem. And thank you for sharing.